Competitions
Put your cyber skills to the test in our exciting competitions and challenges!
Cyber Explorers Cup
A UK-wide competition for students aged 11–14, designed to ignite interest in cybersecurity and digital careers. Participants engage in interactive missions, solve real-world cyber scenarios, and apply critical thinking, teamwork, and digital literacy skills to earn points and complete tasks. This needs a teacher to sign up.
FirstLego League
FIRST® LEGO® League sparks curiosity and confidence in young minds through hands-on STEM experiences. Across the globe, students imagine, build, and explore together as they develop critical thinking, collaboration, and creative problem-solving skills in their most formative years.
FirstTech Challenge
Not necessarily cyber, more a robotics challenge but it empowers young people aged 12 – 18 years to develop the technical and soft skills they need to take on the future.
National Cipher challenge
Hosted by the University of Southampton, this annual competition runs in the autumn and challenges participants to solve a series of encrypted messages. It’s designed to develop codebreaking skills and offers a £5,000 prize pool.
The Perse Coding Team Challenge
A coding competition where students submit short code solutions to a range of challenges increasing in difficulty. Teams work in pairs in Round 1 and then in a team of three in Round 2. A high score in Round 1 is required to progress to Round 2. All students must be in Year 11 or younger on 1st September of the competition year.
TechFirst / CyberFirst Girls competition
Aimed at inspiring girls aged 12–13 to pursue careers in cybersecurity, this competition involves teams facing challenges in logic, cryptography, AI, and networking. It is due to be rebranded to TechFirst Girls for 2026.
